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Med-Tech Innovation Products and Services


PRODUCTS AND SERVICES


semiconductors can make certain these products unsuitable for use in higher value equipment. In particular, instruments that are bought in large numbers by health authorities such as portable defibrillators, equipment for telemedicine or continuous positive airway pressure machines for treatment of sleep apnoea, tend to have replacement intervals of several years. As such, they must be supported and maintainable far beyond the normal lifetime of a typical consumer.


Research and dialogue Medical equipment designers, therefore, must navigate potential pitfalls surrounding component selection when doing the groundwork for a medical project. Dialogue with suppliers is crucial. However, direct contact with the component manufacturer is often not feasible, particularly for start-up companies or where prospective order quantities are low. Distributors can offer a solution to these challenges, taking advantage of their links with component manufacturers. Increasingly, distributors are acting as design partners to their customers, helping to select the most suitable components. This can include advising when components are specifically not recommended


Automated blast cleaning system


A UK manufacturer of orthopaedic implants and surgical instrumentation is using Guyson’s Multiblast RSB blast machine for cleaning off hydroxyapatite and titanium coating overspray from its cup and stem implant fixture masks; these become encrusted with coating when the medical implants undergo vacuum plasma spraying. The company turned to Guyson when it wanted to improve


throughput on its manual blasting operation, which was acting as a bottleneck in its production routine. The cleaning process was being undertaken using suction fed manual blast cabinet and could take up to thirty minutes. The automated Multiblast RSB system now achieves a perfect clean finish in a shorter time, with virtually no operator involvement.


The coated fixture masks are manually loaded into their own component holders on the turntable in the rubber lined blast chamber. The fixture masks rotate at a controlled, adjustable speed and are blasted from two nozzles, which vertically traverse up and down the component at a pre-positioned angle and distance to achieve overall coverage of the target surfaces, whilst they rotate under a constant stream of glass bead blasting. Once the blast cycle is finished, an integral air knife blows off the residual dust from the components. Guyson International Ltd tel. +44 (0)1756 799 911, www.guyson.co.uk


Laser micro cutting and welding


Subcontract laser technology specialist Veslatec advocates laser welding because it produces hermetical and reliable sealing. With a picosecond fibre laser it is possible to weld transparent materials fast and accurately, it says. This laser assisted welding process


44 ¦ November/December 2011


for the type of product or application, and helping to identify the best alternatives from supportive manufacturers. In some cases, distributor FAEs may be able to secure certain components that would not normally be offered to customers outside the top tiers. Moreover, their advance knowledge of new components can help customers implement the latest devices such as processors supporting high-performance networking or user-interface capabilities without suffering from the rapid obsolescence typical in consumer semiconductor markets. Often, a little care and knowledge can go a long way towards ensuring the required component performance, manufacturer support, sustainability and traceability. These are essential ingredients for achieving a successful design that offers the best performance and safety from the patient perspective, while also safeguarding the vendor’s reputation.


Information supplied by Ronald Singh, European Technical Marketing Manager, Avnet Memec Tel. +44 (0)1844 263 600, www.avnetmemec.eu


Tube cutter system


Gillard has launched an updated version of its high performance Servo-Torq Ultra rotary cutter specifically for producing bubble, taper or bump tube for medical applications. This machine uses


the latest AC brushless servomotors with a fully digital three-axis control system. The company claims that this system can hold length accuracies to within ± 0.1 mm even at high line speeds. An important feature, according to Gillard, is that both caterpillar infeeder belts have their own AC servo drive. These are synchronised to within one encoder pulse per motor revolution, which represents a speed holding accuracy of better than 0.0005%. A third servo motor then powers the rotary cutting blade. All the motors are monitored by a single motion controller running on a fully digital communication network. This control system allows the precise adjustment of the line speed acceleration and deceleration required when creating bubbles along the tube length. Another important feature is that the caterpillar has been moved much closer to the knife blade. This is of particular importance when handling ultra-small diameter tubing. The machine has been tested on tube diameters down to 0.3 mm OD. The caterpillar belts can also operate in conventional parallel mode or be tilted into a nip position. All Gillard medical cutter systems are designed for clean-room use. Gillard Cutting Technology tel. +44 (0)1684 290 243, www.gillard.co.uk


produces a very small heat affected zone on the work piece. No bonding materials or physical force are needed and the welding is done directly on the processed material, which minimises the need for additional processing steps. Veslatec Oy


tel. +358 40 541 5062, www.veslatec.com www.med-techinnovation.com


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